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More on "Good Omens" the Movie and Coraline

Posted by Hemos on from the go-and-purchase dept.

In a recent e-mail exchange I had with Neil Gaiman he confirmed that Terry Gilliam is the director for the adapation of Good Omens to the screen. On a side note, Gaiman has been working on Coraline and will be doing a signing of the book in the Barnes and Noble in Union Square, NYC on Thursday the 11th. That's today. Update: 07/11 13:15 GMT by CT : I just wanted to say 'Curse Your Terry Gilliam'! Ever since I read Good Omens, I wished I was a film director just so I could direct that book. I guess Terry will do a good job too ;)

6 of 131 comments (clear)

  1. The right director confirmed! by Saint+Fnordius · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Choosing Terry Gilliam to do Good Omens is perfect. His style and dark humour complement Pratchett and Gaiman's wierd little epic. Although Terry Gilliam is American, he is one of the few directors I'd trust to do this with the right British touch (not too much, but not too little as well).

    Now we can hope for an intelligent comedy that doesn't resort to butt (fart) jokes.

    1. Re:The right director confirmed! by Angry+Toad · · Score: 4, Insightful

      There's a great deal of information on the Good Omens movie at a Terry Gilliam fansite called Dreams. Apparently they're actually playing down the comedic aspects of the book. This seems like kind of a smart idea to me - the book done as a faux-serious metaphysical drama, combined with Gilliam's warped worldmaking talents, could really work. A straight-up adaption of the book's (mostly conceptual, descriptive) jokes might fall flat...

  2. But what about the footnotes? by reddfoxx · · Score: 3, Insightful

    If you have actually read this book you would know that the footnotes are often the best and funniest parts of a all around good tale about the biblical apocalypse. How will any director mention the different misprint versions of the bible that the angel and sonetimes bookstore owner has collected?

    I'm actually very interested to see if this thing pans out. I just hope that the history of the british monetary system actually makes it into the movie

  3. Re:Eat Fud by mberman · · Score: 3, Insightful
    over the past 2 decades it seems that he's been trying to distance himself from his Monty Python past. None of his recent films can be considered comedies.

    Umm, what? Two decades ago would be 1982. In that year, he wrote some of the sketches Monty Python Live at the Hollywood Bowl and the year after, he directed Monty Python's The Meaning of Life. Doesn't sound too distant to me. But, let's give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you meant "18 years" when you said "two decades". In the last 18 years, he's done Brazil, Baron Munchausen, The Fisher King, Twelve Monkeys, and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. You mentioned Munchausen already, but, really, if you didn't think all the rest (with the exception of Fisher King) where comedies, well, then, you didn't understand them. They may not be as outright silly as Python, but they're still comedies, and with Twelve Monkeys, it even approaches Pythonesque silliness in some places. Saying Brazil isn't a comedy is like saying Fight Club isn't a comedy. If you didn't think it was funny, you didn't get it...

    --

    This is a self-referential sig

  4. Coraline by KFury · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I had the good fortune to go to Gaiman's reading of Coraline last week in Berkeley (the day the book was released, he did a full 3-hour reading of the text to a packed cathedral of 800 people).

    Before he began, he confirmed that Henry Selick (Nightmare Before Christmas, James and the Giant Peach, Monkeybone), who was in attendance, would be directing the movie version of Coraline, and that Michelle Pfeiffer was signed on to play the Mother/Other Mother roles.

    It's a great story, and is sort of a shift for Gaiman, targeting a broader aged audience, while remaining dark but more polished (no footnotes, and a more constant narrative tone). The reading was fabulous, and I could totally visualize the movie version.

    A friend of mine did a more thorough write-up of the reading for those interseted.

    --

    Kevin Fox
  5. Re:Eat Fud by dswensen · · Score: 3, Insightful
    PS, is anyone else out there upset that his plan to do The Watchmen fell through? That would have been a fantastic film!

    No, because I feel the great strength of Watchmen is in how perfectly suited it is to its medium. I think Watchmen is a damn near perfect example of what a graphic novel ought to be. And I know, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that most of what I love about Watchmen would not survive the transition to film. Hollywood has never hesitated to take a chainsaw to a good story.

    I seriously hope Watchmen never becomes a movie.